Posts Tagged ‘shalrie joseph’

A few heres and theres coming out of last night’s 1-0 loss to the Chicago Fire…

Matt Reis started the game, making his 2010 MLS debut. Reis played the first half of the Revs’ exhibition against Cruzeiro back on June 13, but last night marked his return to league play. Reis missed the season’s first 12 matches after offseason rotator cuff and knee surgeries. Reis stopped 4 of 5 shots on goal but took the loss in the match.

Revs’ third round pick and recent signing Jason Griffiths made his MLS debut after coming on in the 81st minute. Griffiths did participate in the Revs’ exhibition against Portugal’s Benfica earlier this season when he was on trial with the club, but last night marked the English midfielder’s first league match. Griffiths gave some chippy defensive play in the match’s final ten minutes. Said Griffiths: “I was kind of nervous coming in losing 1-0 and I was expecting an attacking player to go on but it was great to get on. It was a disappointing score but the boys tried hard and we can push on for next week and get a good result.”

With Griffith replacing striker Zack Schilawski, Shalrie Joseph was pushed up top. Coach Steve Nicol explained: “When you’re getting into the last 10 minutes of the game and their sitting back and we’re getting desperate, we’re basically hoping Shalrie can get on the end of something.”

The Revolution are now 1-7-2 after a promising 2-1-0 start to the season.

After watching the United States’ elimination from the World Cup at the hands of Ghana on Saturday, New England soccer fans shifted some of their attention back to the Revolution.

The last time they’d seen the Revs in MLS play, though, there was little to get excited about. Before the league went on hiatus to grant the Yanks center stage, Steve Nicol‘s club hit rock bottom after a 3-0 loss in Seattle wherein they were outshot 19-2.

In returning to action at Gillette Stadium, the Revs again fell – this time 1-0 to the Chicago Fire at Gillette Stadium – but did not look clueless in the process, at least.

Saturday was a big night for the Revolution, who posted a 3-2 victory over New York. Some housekeeping to send us into the fresh week…

The Revolution managed to at last kill off a 9 game winless streak, which included 7 league matches. Since April 10, New England had gone 0-7-2 and 0-5-2 in MLS competition. Shalrie Joseph, instrumental in the victory, missed 8 of the 9 games, 7 of which were due to suspension for a positive test for marijuana. He was injured when the club took on the San Jose Earthquakes in San Jose. The Revolution have twice faced 7 game winless streaks and ultimately made the playoffs. In fact, the 2003 club that went to the Eastern

Zack Schilawski is leading the Revs and MLS rookies in goals. Image: isiphotos.com

Conference finals posted a 9 game drought (0-5-4) between July and August of 2003.

Zack Schilawski‘s 5th goal of 2010 puts him in a tie for 3rd in MLS and keeps him in the league lead amongst rookies. Joseph’s 3rd assist ties him for 9th in the league. This is, of course, remarkable given that Joseph has only played in 3 games. Joseph’s connections with Schilawski and Marko Perovic against New York are important for the Revs: each of the two he assisted are new this season to the club, and probably represent the its two best finishers (excepting, perhaps, Joseph himself). For Joseph to develop chemistry with each of them will go a long way towards the Revs’ success. (more…)

In hosting the New York Red Bulls at Gillette Stadium, the Revolution experienced a night of highs and lows.

The highs? In his second match back from a five game suspension, captain Shalrie Joseph took full control of his club and led his team to victory. His presence on the field showed in his two assists and in his gathering the team in a circle to pick up the club’s morale after a five minute halt in play.

The reason for the halt doubles as the low. The Revs lost keeper Preston Burpo, Major League Soccer’s saves leader. And they didn’t lose him for a game or two. It is beyond unlikely that Burpo will see action again in 2010. His excellent season has all but come to an end.

The Revolution enter tonight’s second half with a 2-1 lead over New York. New England suffered a major injury and will miss goalie Preston Burpo in the second half, but the players will need to keep their focus if they want to record their first victory since April 10.

A quick note: I haven’t been called out on it yet, but it needs to be said. In the first half I wrote that the replay of the play that resulted in Burpo’s injury didn’t look too bad to me. I clearly wasn’t looking hard enough. Having seen the ankle dangle as it did upon another viewing makes me wish I hadn’t seen it. Apologies to Burpo and to you all for missing that earlier.

As the Revolution are now 1/3 of the way through their MLS campaign and the blog a bit slow of late, I figured I’d throw together an assessment of the team’s individual players through the season’s first segment. The grades and assessments are based only on MLS play.

The grades are also weighted – the players are in competition with one another here, not with the rest of the league and certainly not with the rest of the soccer universe. Brief tangent: I never understood teachers/professors that didn’t weight grades. If nearly everyone has a C, then the kid who has the C+ did best in the class. So he should get the A. Right? Maybe I took too competitive an approach to school, though that wouldn’t explain all the nights I put off papers and studying to engage in whatever inane activity was to be undergone instead…

Right then. Here are the grades in ascending order of quality, because it’s more fun to write about those with whom one or one’s readership is pleased.

On April 24, New England Revolution captain Shalrie Joseph took a leave of absence that cost him five league matches and seven overall. Few details were released, and fans immediately began speculating as to its reason. The odds were that Joseph had either suffered a serious family emergency, or he’d committed an atrocity.

Within a few days, Boston.com’s Frank Dell’Apa reported that Joseph was partaking in MLS’s Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health program. In his time away from the club during what actually proved to be a suspension, the Revolution went 0-3-2 and were clearly lacking in phases of the game to which Joseph added quite a bit.

But fans understood. Joseph was involved with some pretty bad stuff, they figured, and needed some help. Or worse yet, maybe he was using PEDs and in actuality really deserved the punishment.